Time to Hunker Down and Focus on What Really Matters

By Si Dunn

Many Americans are about to get back to basics, because of the economy's massive and continuing meltdown.

Suddenly, we don't have nearly as much money as we used to have. Suddenly, we can't get credit. And suddenly, we're terrified, after being reassured just a couple of weeks ago that our economy was fundamentally sound and strong.

Oops. The global marketplace has turned out to be a massive house of cards.

After 9-11, many Americans were ready to sacrifice for a war effort and help fight terrorists. President Bush told us go shopping, instead.

Well, the time to go shopping is here again, only this time, it really is the time to go shopping.

All across our nation, thousands of small businesses suddenly are hurting and teetering on the brink of extinction. Millions of jobs and countless dreams are hanging in the balance in tiny shops, small stores, family-owned restaurants, and moderate-sized warehouses, car dealerships and strip shopping malls, as well as in big companies, factories and corporate headquarters.

Whether you need goods or services, now is the time to buy something from the businesses in your neighborhood, the ones that, even in good times, have provided just modest livings for their owners and employees. They are the real heart and soul of the American economy. They are Main Street.

Just a few bucks spent here and there can make a huge difference, if a lot of us are willing to get off our wallets and make the effort.

Neighbor helping neighbor; family member helping family member; friend helping friend; everyone helping those in need. And all taking care of the basics and focusing on what really matters.

This is how we can ride out the massive financial storms now savaging Wall Street and our own meager savings.

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Washington to Average Americans: "Bail Yourselves Out, Turkeys"

By Si Dunn

Thank runaway deregulation and greed for this: a free-market freefall that will cost the federal government (meaning us) upward of a trillion dollars. Suddenly, the only way to stop major banks and other financial institutions from collapsing under the weight of their own bad debts and stupid decisions is to throw mountain ranges of cash at them.

That cash, of course, will not be coming from a Strategic Money Reserve hidden deep under a Colorado mountain. It will come straight from our pockets, straight from programs we support or desire, and straight, no doubt, from China's Central Bank. (Someday we may discover that China now owns us, and we are just another province.)

With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also draining billions of dollars per month, the next Administration, Obama or McCain, won't be able to afford to offer us much of anything except platitudes and fervent appeals for us pull ourselves up by our frayed and knotted bootstraps.

Here, without any fanfare for the comman man, is the kind of bailout plan we can expect to receive on Main Street: (1) raise cash by selling your household goods on eBay; (2) raise more cash by selling off your personal library on Amazon; and (3) sell whatever is left over at a garage sale. And if anything remains after steps 1, 2, and 3, donate those items to Goodwill, so you can get a generous tax deduction of, say, fifty bucks or so. Then use the fifty bucks to buy a tank of gas so you can drive away from your foreclosed house.

Oh, and by the way, pay no attention to the golden parachutes now blossoming open all over the sky. It's just those silly clowns from the financial sector, still trying to get us to look up to them.

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